


Bad Business

by Alarnia



Series: Ruby Slippers [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Creepy, Horror, Implied Mind Rape, Mind Rape, Other, Tentacle Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:22:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alarnia/pseuds/Alarnia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabble. Amadeo's made his fair share of bad deals in his life, some far worse than the galactic average.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Business

 

Amadeo didn’t expect it, when he felt that sinuous chill run down his spine. But when did he ever? This bastard was near intangible, and sometimes just seemed to appear where ever he knew he would be most hated, willy-nilly. Like every patch of impenetrable darkness was his personal worm-hole.

”h-hh long time no see-” Amadeo stutters out, not actually looking. He’s staring down at his empty shot glass and the stainless steel bar counter underneath. He’s making a concentrated effort to do the exact opposite of look up at his acquaintance.  _Don’t look don’t look-_  but any kind of sanity Amadeo had been pointlessly trying to preserve by doing so is shredded when he feels it speaking to him, it’s presence creeping into his mind like an eel slithering inside his ear, using his brain like a handkerchief.

This isn’t his first time speaking with this particular individual, but he would definitely never get used to how horrible this feeling was.

Distantly, he feels tendrils wrapping around him, draping over his shoulders, notices a seething mass taking a place on the bar stool just beside him, while countless smarter patrons of the bar are making a B-Line for the exit. But at the moment Amadeo can hardly keep himself from going into a fit. He makes a vague gesture and the Bartender mercifully leaves him a bottle of something strong before running off to hide as well. Amadeo downs half of it in one go. He should be choking on it, but nothing, not even this horse piss, could be worse than the thing crawling around in his his brain right now, and the only thing that made him feel  _mildly_  better about having his mind raped was being drunk out of his mind while it happened.

"You’ve been avoiding me again, Amadeo." it’s horrible voice rings in the pirate’s mind, echoed by the thing’s actual voice, which is an even creepier mix of chirrups and croaks and screams and is just generally completely impossible to be understood by most sentient beings, even if one did have the stamina to withstand the way the sounds drove one towards insanity, the language was still incredibly complex.

Besides, who would bother trying to learn that language when everyone of this thing’s kind just skipped all the language barriers just by hitching a ride in your head? Simple, right?

 ”Avvoiding you? Noo, of cccourse not, wwe both know that’s a hopeless enddeavor.” Amadeo should know better than to try to lie to a mind reader. The result is something like a mental slap. Then, tendrils coil tight around his neck, disgusting but not yet suffocating. He turns his head and hes staring down the most impressive set of jaws. It’s large enough to swallow him hole, and lined with endless rows of serrated teeth. Amadeo thinks he can see forever before he makes himself shut his eyes again. It’s breath is clammy and cold, and he can feel the spittle that flecks his cheek when it speaks again.

"You owe me Amadeo, and it’s time to pay up." One might wonder what a minor god of the furthest ring would need from a human, but Amadeo has never pretended to understand this one’s motivations. To him it had always been, Mr. Loan shark. (partly because the blond could not pronounce it’s actual name) Ever since he was just barely a man, a young orphaned criminal looking to make it big, but without the actual leverage to get him anywhere.

"Ddon’t be melodramatic, you know you’ve said that line too many times for that to scare me any more."

"Like you’re anyone to talk, you thespian." The coils tightened and Amadeo choked around his laugh.

"I’m too busy to play your games today, so I’ll be taking what’s due to me." It’s voice came out in an angry chatter, and Amadeo had no voice to complain before he felt his mind being ripped through, rougher than he remembered it ever being, not that he’d ever had very good memory of his past encounters to begin with.

But one thing he did know, was that every time this happened he always felt… bare, somehow. Hollow and robbed of something personal that he could no longer put his finger on. He wondered what memories could be so important to him that it could be stolen from his mind, and yet still leave enough of an afterglow to make him miss it.

But he had to pay the demon something, and emotions were it’s favorite food so it seemed the most appropriate payment to a young and naive Amadeo, too young to appreciate the importance of the past. He could have gone with a more direct approach of feeding the monster, by letting it toy with him, letting it devour the present instead of what was locked up in his head, but somehow it had convinced him not to. Maybe Amadeo had ended up with the short end of the stick, but that was a loan shark for you, and it was a bit late to make any changes to the agreement anyway when the pirate had almost finished his payment plan.

Or at least that’s what he could remember.

Several hours later Amadeo was left in a heap somewhere cold, twitching and barely functional. He wasn’t in the bar anymore, he was somewhere else with no memory of ever getting there. He was naked in lavish hotel with the AC cranked up to refrigerator. The sheets were filthy.

But none of this disturbed Amadeo, or even surprised him. His skull pounded with too much ferocity for him to care about anything else. He danced on the edge between overused rawness and pleasant satiation, and finally exhaustion pushed him to a dreamless sleep, ignoring the note left on the nightstand written in perfect cursive lettering.


End file.
